It is known in the art to use stacking equipment in order to stack individually produced items, such as frozen pizza shells, or a single layer of multiple items, such as sliced foods or cooked strips of bacon. These known stackers may stack the items directly on one another, such as is the case of frozen pizza shells, or can receive a substrate which carries a product or a plurality of slices of the product to be stacked. The individual product or product/substrate are carried onto a stacking platform, which can either be slidably or rotatably displaced in order to drop the item or substrate with the items thereon onto a lower level stacking position, which is generally on an outfeed conveyor. These systems have been known to operate with good results for stable items and/or items which do not slide on the substrate; however, for a variety of items, such as cooked bacon on a paper substrate a number of issues arise with respect to maintaining the items on the substrate while loading the item onto the stacker platform as well as during dropping of the items in order to form the stack. The non-uniformity of the items, with or without substrates, and the tendency of the items to slide on a substrate results in misalignments of the items and/or substrates with items, and also the loss of some of the items from the substrate as it is loaded on the stacker. Further, during the drop-stacking, if the substrates are not properly aligned and/or the items on the substrate have slid, the stack of substrates on the outfeed conveyor is formed without being uniformly aligned and/or there is a further loss of product from the substrates.
It would be desirable to provide a more uniform method for loading substrates carrying items which are to be stacked onto a stacker as well as to provide an improved stacking arrangement to create uniform stacks of items in operation.